by Laura Briggs
"Yes, you were," he corrected. "Everyone does. I'm well aware of it, and, furthermore, I'm accustomed to it. Your next question will probably be if Sidney is my sole caretaker, and how much independence I possess, and the answers will be 'no' and 'very little,' to save you the trouble."
He maintained the same position throughout all of this, as if signaling how little natural movement he possessed. Above the collar of his knitted pullover was a face which was gaunt but young, and was handsome despite his thinness. His gaze could sweep a room with a keen perception beyond most of us: I imagined that it could hold you prisoner, flatter you highly, or crush you deeply, and all by the strength and intelligence of the man himself. I imagined despite that, at one time, the look in those eyes had been a little softer, and a little kinder.
"I have a trained nurse who comes in the mornings and stays most nights," said Dean, ending our silence. "Each day I have a few hours to myself, which is when Sidney very kindly comes to see me. He's most helpful at doing things which might seem rather odd to my nurses, who are, nevertheless, paid to smile and humor me through all manner of bad moods and little eccentricities."
"You were — are — a painter," I said. "Were you always one?"
"No. I took it up after the accident. I'm rather good for a man who has only partial use of his left hand," he answered. "Picasso is rather put to shame by comparison, having had use of both." Sarcastically.
"I was implying that maybe you were something else in the past," I said. "And that you're still an artist, even if it's with Sidney's help."
"I told you not to pity me."
"Sorry, I guess," I answered, although I didn't sound sorry at all. "I guess you've made Sidney an excellent painter, then." I was beginning to wish I had volunteered to put on the kettle. Quiet followed.
"Osteospermum," Dean said. "The African daisy in your hair."
I touched it with one hand, and refrained from blushing, though I knew he had already guessed its origins. Surely he had been to the vicarage gardens a time or two, if he ever left his cottage.
"That's right," I answered.
"Very pretty," he said. "I think it suits you." In a voice softer than it had been with previous remarks. I began to think, just a tiny bit, that maybe all hope wasn't lost.
"I should probably see if Sidney needs some help with the tray," I said. Although it felt like an age had passed, there was no sign of his imminent reappearance.
"The kitchen is through the door behind you, at the end of the passage," said Dean. I rose from my chair and followed his directions, which took me past two closed doors and more artwork on the walls. I wondered if any of the canvases were Dean's own.
In the kitchen, the kettle was puffing steam as the stove's eye blazed beneath it. Sidney was sitting at the kitchen table, head leaning on one hand as my manuscript lay open before him. His attention was seemingly engrossed in its pages.
"What are you doing?" I said. He looked up.
"Sorry. Couldn't resist," he said.
"Don't read it when I'm around," I protested. "Only when I'm elsewhere. It makes me uncomfortable, watching someone read what I've written." I would squirm horribly in the past when sitting across from Scott in his office, waiting as he glanced over an assignment in progress.
"I'll remember in the future," he promised. "Are you and Dean getting on?" he asked.
"I think maybe he doesn't like me very much," I said, keeping my voice low. "Maybe he feels I sort of pushed my way into your afternoon."
"Hardly. I invited you. He's just a bit tired, that's all," said Sidney. "Besides, it does him good to chat with outsiders. If not for that, he'd spend the day moping and painting canvases in his mind." He poured the kettle into the teapot. "He likes you, though. I can tell."
"Good," I said, although I didn't believe a word of this. "He seems interesting. Although he's not the chattiest person I've ever met."
"Give him time," said Sidney. "He tells a good story when he's in the mood. There's good days and bad, just like for the rest of us." He lifted the tray, then set it back down and retied the twine around my manuscript.
"What's that for?" I asked. He gave me a look.
"Resisting temptation," he answered. "Grab the biscuit tin from the cupboard, will you? And there's custard tarts — Dean always has some delivered with his groceries." He lifted the tray again. "Maybe the two of you can suggest some ideas for the vicarage's party. The vicar's rather struggling to find inspiration for this year's."
"No body in the library?" I asked, as I followed him with the tin of cookies and a package or two of custard tarts.
"Murder games. That's exactly the sort of thing we need," he said.
"I'll suggest the vicar's housekeeper as the first victim," said Dean, who was in earshot now.
"The vicar's housekeeper? What has she done to you?" I asked.
"Ever eaten her treacle pudding?" he replied. "You'd agree she deserves a foul fate on All Hallow's Eve. She keeps sending the dreadful stuff as if it should cheer me to receive a tin of it."
"It is rather dreadful," admitted Sidney to me, in a whisper. "But she means well." Although a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth, he managed to keep it at bay for Dean's suggestion as he placed the tray on the table and poured the first cup for his friend, in a glass equipped with a lid and straw.
_________________
"She's positively a fortune hunter," said Bill, stubbing out a cigarette in a nearly-full ash tray. "Look at her. Fawning over him ... obviously it's only for the money."
It was a cool day on the shore in late October, though the sun itself was bright and warm, which is why the earl's party was parked recreationally on the hotel's beach as per their host's latest eccentric desire — or demand. The earl himself was sitting in a sunbathing chair, covered by his usual wool lap robe, with Natalie Norridge sitting cross-legged on the sand beside him, chatting sociably, while the earl's assistant went for a dip in the ocean.
Bill's comments were uttered with a sneer of contempt and a hand pointedly gesturing to Miss Norridge's torso bravely attired in a flattering red and white two-piece swimsuit despite the cool sand and cooler water. Ten minutes ago, he had sidled up to the psychic and made a thinly-veiled pass at her, only to be told that his 'romantic aura' was unfavorably situated for a relationship, which perhaps explained his comment's extra venom.
I folded the family's towels and placed them on a nearby deck chair. I hoped a little sand sprinkled itself between the layers of young Bill's as I watched him flop back in his deck chair with a sigh of boredom.
"I think the blame is more on Freddy," said Budgy, who sat with his eyes closed and an 'after lunch' cocktail beside him. "There's no fool like an old fool, and he's chosen a very pretty distraction for himself. Likely nothing more will come of it than harmless flirtation, young William, so you needn't worry so much about your inheritance being willed to a charming spirit whisperer."
Bill's face flamed red. "Who said I was worried about my grandfather's money?" he retorted. "I'm only worried he's making a ruddy fool of himself, that's all." He gazed sulkily at the ocean, where the companion's head bobbed above the water as he swam back to shore and joined the earl's party on the beach's edge.
"Do stop discussing such unpleasant ideas," said the earl’s daughter Kay. Her nose was smeared in thick zinc cream and a disagreeable expression adorned her face at every moment. "And kindly keep your voices low."
She cast a glance in the direction of me and Gomez, who were setting up beach chairs for the guests, and folding out a table for the lemon squash and glasses. "Derrick will be so displeased if we're typified in the press as the earl's 'squabbling family'. You never know when the staff at these places might be taking bribes to gossip."
"Your precious Derrick," sneered her son. "Is he worried his seat in Parliament will be lost because of granddad's eccentricities? Or is it he hoped for something better when allying himself with a line of nobility?"
"Your stepfather is from one of the o
ldest families —"
" — in all of Britain. Yes, we know, mother."
The companion Dalton, toweling himself off from his swim, rose from beside the earl and trotted up to the beach chair over which the earl's cardigan was draped. As he reached into its pocket, Kay slapped his hand away sharply.
"What business do you have rummaging through my father's pockets?" she demanded. "In front of us, no less, without even a 'by your leave, madam.' Have you no respect for my father's station and privacy?"
"Sorry, but your father's pills are in there, and he asked me to fetch them," said the companion, apologetically.
"Next time, ask one of us to locate them for you," said Phil, who was wearing a swimsuit and claimed to be fond of chilly sea baths, though he hadn't made a move towards the water. "Really, you can't trust anyone these days," he said, as soon as the assistant had departed with the bottle in question. "I shouldn't wonder if he isn't pushing father into this girl's trap, just to make the old man soft enough to leave him something in the will." He lowered his sunglasses and watched Dalton counting out the earl's dose, then laughing at some remark his employer made.
They looked cheerful by the shore's edge: the earl, his assistant, and the medium. I imagined the earl was lonely, and probably enjoyed the company of two people as lively and cheerful as his current companions. Especially given the sour nature of the rest of his family and friends. Even Doctor Pitt, who had agreed that sea air and sunshine could boost the human constitution, was sitting glumly by the refreshments table, only venturing an occasional remark on mutual funds to Phillip.
Every guest had come down to join the earl's afternoon shore party, except for the playwright, who claimed he was struck by inspiration at breakfast. Like the medium, ghost hunter Kate Salinger was wearing a two-piece swimsuit, although she was shivering in hers.
"Heavens, it's cold today," she said, wrapping herself up in her beach towel. "It was warmer than this where I last hunted for paranormal sightings at Halloween. I prefer warm climates better, anyway."
"Where was that?" asked the sculptor. Ofong was sampling refreshments as he sat on the sand, his finger tracing little swirls and curls in its surface.
"Brazil, actually. Rumors of a haunted monastery," she said. "I spent two weeks there with an online documentarian's investigation team. Not quite as much coverage as our 'spirit whisperer' has enjoyed, but we had our enthusiastic internet audience, nonetheless." She leaned back in her chair after shading her face with a floppy beach hat.
"I shouldn't wonder if every place has its ghosts," said the heiress Minerva, as she sipped the glass of lemonade I poured for her. "Even this very hotel must have them."
"You think the hotel is haunted?" I asked, speaking aloud before I had time to remember my place as smiling but impersonal hotel staff. Were there ghost stories about The Penmarrow Hotel? Phantoms of old family tragedies or unhappy guests from long ago wandering its halls, like the one Gomez claimed to have seen? Exactly the sort of stuff excellent supernatural novels are made of, as every good writer knows.
"Why not? People lived there in the past. Someone must have died there, surely. Or, if there is such a thing as a ghost, it had its happiest moments in those walls and wished to return to them," she said. "Perhaps I'll have it investigated. Miss Salinger can do it for me. I'll chair a foundation which hires paranormal investigators to seek out the untold ghost stories of Britain's hotels."
"I'll be happy to do it. For a fee, of course," Kate replied.
"The only thing haunting the hotel I stayed at in Edinburgh was its drafts," said Phillip, boredly. I was beginning to think contempt was the only shade that colored the earl's family in unity.
"I stayed at a haunted hotel in Ireland, once," said the doctor. "No ghost appeared, I'm afraid. I've heard of a haunted hotel in New York where a ghostly maid raps on the door quite promptly at six, then sinks through the floorboards if you answer it."
"I'd faint away," said the earl’s daughter, with a shudder. "I hope there aren't any ghouls in service at the hotel."
"Only the living," I supplied cheerfully. "At least, as far as we know." From the corner of my eye, I saw Minerva hide her smile.
"A biscuit here, if you please," said Minerva, when I had returned from fetching a tray of 'nibbles' for the guests, as Molly called them. "Kay has one of her headaches, and she claims it helps."
Despite her many diamonds, the wealthy philanthropist had a friendly smile and an air of kindness, which was more than could be said for the earl's daughter. I wondered if maybe a kindred spirit existed in the earl's old friend, who might be understanding of a desperate writer seeking adventure and an artist's tutelage.
"You're an American, aren't you?" she said to me as I held out the tray to the guest beside her.
"I am," I said. "I've been working overseas for the past few weeks for the experience." Experience of what was best left blank, of course. Especially since the author in question was supposed to be among the guests, not that the Alistair Davies' pseudonym had yet to appear on the guest book's page this week.
"I've been to your country several times. Very modern, lively, and charming in a very different way from my part of London," she said. "You and I have something in common, then, since I'm a stranger to this part of England also. When Freddy told me he wanted to revisit the site of his favorite family holiday, I expected to be taken to the circus, knowing him as I do — not to a quaint little seaside hotel."
"The earl has a lot of interesting friends," I said, as the heiress selected a biscuit for herself. I hesitated. "I was under the impression that another famous writer was supposed to join him — besides Sir Nigel. Has one of the earl's guests been delayed?"
It was too much to hope for that she would know — and the question showed too much impertinence on my part for an ordinary hotel maid, I knew. Surprisingly enough, Kay, who had been nibbling her biscuit in mincing bites, chose to reply to me.
"You must mean Alistair Davies," she said. "Davies was never invited for the week, only for the birthday party — conflicting engagements, or something of the like. Probably some beastly problem with a novel's final chapters. I've heard Alistair is ever so terrible about burrowing away with a novel."
"You know Alistair Davies?"
"Know Davies? But of course. I simply adore Alistair. The only one who made that dull fundraiser at Egypt House remotely bearable," said Kay, snootily. "Although, to know Alistair — a rare privilege which only a few of us have the fortune of sharing, really — is to keep the secret —"
Secret? That word had my attention, as if I wasn't 'all ears' for her narrative on the author already. But before she got any further in her statement, her brother Phil set down his glass. "The chill in the air is growing rather strong, don't you think?" he said to her. "Shouldn't father really go inside for the sake of his lungs?"
"Of course. But will he agree?" said Kay. "Have William try to persuade him. William, do come and speak to your grandfather —" But the earl's grandson had managed to slip away somehow, for his deck chair was empty, and the cigarette stubs in his ash tray looked cold already.
"Where can he have gone? I told him he simply must spend some time with his grandfather —"
"I'll do it." A decided grumble in Phillip's voice as he rose to his feet and shuffled through the sand towards the party's cheeriest guests and host, addressing the earl's assistant first in barking tones, until the young man scrambled aside.
"See here, father," Phillip began, and the carefree look on the earl's worn face became a tad steely, as if already bracing for the fight. He exchanged not-so-subtle glances with the medium beside him, who gave him a sympathetic smile.
"See what I mean?" Kay muttered to Minerva. "She's quite positively up to something."
_________________
For the earl's birthday dinner, the private tableau dining room was cleaned and decoratively detailed to the nines. Katy and I hoovered the large Asian carpet three times, and polished the marble f
loor tiles until their sheen defied any waxy buildup. The Grecian wall murals were dusted, the heavy drapes were beaten, the windows polished, even though the drapes would be closed, and the elaborate fireplace with its gilded insert given the same 'elbow grease' as the rest. We even dusted the crystals of the chandelier overhead, sending all its facets tinkling like glass bells as we wobbled on the highest step of the hotel's folding ladder.
As before, Mr. Trelawney oversaw the whole process (although Brigette technically supervised the hoovering and dusting portion). When the white linen was laid, he adjusted the tablecloth's hem to a precise length. The vintage Royal Doulton china set the table with crystal goblets and wine glasses, and the polished silverware with its intricate art nouveau floral design — with a small measuring stick, he checked the distance precisely between each piece, as Katy and I stood by nervously in our neatly-pressed server's uniforms.
Perfect. He rose, adjusted his cummerbund and waistcoat, then snapped his white-gloved fingers at Gomez. "Has the kitchen brought the bottle of wine I requested?" he asked. "Are the bottles of champagne chilling?"
"And the cake is here also, sir," answered the porter. In his faux accent, of course.
"Then I believe we are ready," said the manager.
Pre-dinner cocktails had been accompanied by Bill randomly plunking out a song on the grand piano in the music room, where Kay was making disparaging comments about a painting on the wall, which was 'too modern' for her tastes. It was my job to circulate the cocktail tray as Mr. Trelawney mixed — after he finished consulting with the kitchen whether the soup was hot, the fish was tender to the point of flaking, and the wine bottle was dusty enough in origin.
"The one will suffice, if you please," said Budgy, dryly, when I resigned myself to circulating by him once again with a tray bearing drinks intended for the paranormal investigator and the playwright.
"Are you ... well tonight, sir?" I hesitated to ask — once again, it was definitely not the business of a hotel maid to inquire about the health of a guest obviously conscious and communicative, but it was the first time in the history of his stay that the earl's friend hadn't observed his 'three cocktails before dinner minimum.'